Scarecrow-88 Sweet little movie which could've easily been titled "Max's Bar". It stars John Saxon as a badly damaged man, Roary, whose suicide attempt left his body crippled in that his back is twisted(Saxon's ability to convince us wholeheartedly of this is a major accomplishment he desires mucho accolades)affecting the way he walks. He enters into a bar, meeting a bartender named Jerry(David Morse) with a bum knee, linked to a junk whore named Anne(Amy Wright). With 10 grand, Roary sees fit to use his cash to help pay of the debt owed on Max's Bar, and with his assistance, the business takes off. Jerry, his mouth getting the best of him, challenges a star basketball player for the Golden State Warriors, Alvin Martin(Harold Sylvester), to a round of ball and almost beats him, setting off a sequence of events he couldn't have dreamed of..thanks to Roary, who becomes Jerry's loyal and honorable pal. Jerry's Achilles' heel is Anne who returns to him after a stint with a vicious pimp, Lucius(Tony Burton). Lucius and his goons batter Jerry, with Anne returning to him. So Jerry gives up on life and it's to Roary's credit that he is snapped out of his depression and given a new lease..a talk with Alvin, and Roary might help Jerry follow a dream.Richard Donner's Inside Moves is about dreams, and not forgetting those who helped you along the way. With such a wonderful cast, including a superb supporting group, bar loungers who share a common cordial friendship with each other, such as Bill Henderson(..as wheel-chair bound Blue Lewis), Stinky(Bert Remsen, as the blind joker, always tickling the funny bones of his gang), and Wings(Harold Russel, the vocal leader of the boys, with no hands..many will remember him from The Best Years of Our Lives), I couldn't help but embrace them. Steve Kahan is Donner regular, Burt, a bartender/waiter(who later was the boss of Danny Glover and Mel Gibson in the Lethal Weapon movies)and Jack O'Leary is bar owner Max, who wouldn't increase taxes on his customers which caused his financial troubles.This is the kind of movie which tugs on the heartstrings, it's a gentle, caring film without a bad bone in it's body. Tony Burton's pimp creates the only real violence in the movie, and he's drawn into this story's little setting by good-for-nothing Anne, who leeches on naive Jerry for drug money. The camaraderie among the cast is genuine and pleasant. The budding romance between Roary and a waitress, Louise(..portrayed by Diana Scarwid) only injects more sparks into an already luminous film. Good use of street locations, one of Richard Donner's most off-beat and smaller scaled pictures..very invested in the characters. While I've always responded in kind to Donner's explosive actioners, it's nice to know he could make such an endearing film. Any other time and John Saxon's character would've been exploited as an object of ridicule or comedy. I can't believe I have never even heard of this movie before..go figure. Saxon is the heart and soul of the movie and his work with Scarwid and Morse simply works wonders.

cajunmatt68 I enjoyed this movie when it first came out and after owning it on VHS I am still waiting for it to come out on DVD. I figured with the success that director Richard Donner and star David Morse have enjoyed that we would revisit this early work but alas it has been slow to happen. It is a pretty straight-forward simple story but the way it which it is told is very touching and heart-warming..the dialogue scenes between David Morse and John Savage is very good as is the pre-Cheers bar bantering that goes on between the disabled "barflys". Granted the movie is a little dated, especially with the basketball subplot that today would seem hokey but hey..it's Hollywood. Here's to hoping this release soon shows up on DVD.

inhoch This movie is one of my most favorites. I first saw it when it was being shown to Academy members in 1980. The network showing it was a pay channel named ONTV. I have a laser disc of it which I bought from a store that had it available for rent, but he was able to sell it to me because no one was renting it. As I said, I love this movie but my laser disc player is damaged and I am afraid that the cost of repairing a machine that I need to play just this movie might be prohibitive. Of all of my laser discs, this one is the ONLY one not available on DVD. With such fine actors who are still very active, one would think that the release of this movie on DVD would be a done deal. Question: Can you copy a laser disc onto a DVD? thanks for being here to talk about a great movie.

WLFBoulder This is a movie about the kind of people most of us spend our lives trying to avoid: drunks, whores and cripples of every description. The setting is seamy, mostly taking place in an old neighborhood bar; no ferns here, no clever reparte between beautiful people. The is a story of loneliness and not a little darkness, leavened with gentle, often self-effacing humor.The miracle here is the degree to which you wind up truly caring about what happens to these folks. The action in the movie is simple. The people are not, and it is a remarkable feat of storytelling to bring this ensemble to such rich, moving life.This is truly a sleeper, Steinbeckian in its evocation of the common humanity in us all.